


(Superpower AU)

by Heavenward (PreludeInZ)



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, I make no promises about whether or not it's gonna continue, and actually whenever I reread it, but it's 2AM and I want to post a thing, but you know what it was one of the first things I wrote in this fandom, i remember that it's not damn bad, i'm mostly putting this up for ease of readability, now listen don't get too excited, proper title pending, superpower au, this one is impossible to name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 05:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11395956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/Heavenward
Summary: well, I don't know what to tell ya buddy. from the very deepest depths of my archive and my earliest days in the fandom, it's your stock-standard Superpower AU.





	1. Chapter 1

Scott can’t remember who codenamed him _Guardian_ , but it seems to have stuck. According to Gordon it was that or “Mother Hen” so probably he’s dodged a bullet there. He’s standing on top of some nameless office building in downtown Taipei with John, one hand around his younger brother’s ankle. Scott’s not sure why the height of the building has anything to do with it, but then, he’s not the family psychic.

No one’s ever quite figured out the _floating_ either, but if John’s not in the present, then he’s probably at least three or four feet off the ground. He can’t seem to help it. His relationship with gravity occasionally gets a little bit tenuous. It’s something of a side-effect.

John’s communicator beeps in his wrist, but there’s no way John hears it; his eyes are blank and distant, indicating some impossible absence. He’s staring off into some hypothetical future, some emergency that’s going to surface, something he and the rest of his brothers need to be ready for. Scott adjusts his grip on John’s boot and the call reroutes to his own comm. “Halo’s incommunicado right now. What’s up Titan?”

Virgil tends to eschew codenames. He and Gordon are working a potential hydro dam failure out in Oregon, reported to IR and confirmed by John. “Hey, Scott. It’s, uh, it’s maybe nothing—probably, it’s nothing—but I’ve lost contact with Gordon. He’s been in the water system out here for about ten minutes with no check-in. He was working on reinforcing concrete fissures, but I haven’t heard anything since he started trying to regulate the pressure . I was gonna get John to see if he could get a bead on him, but if he’s busy—“

There’s a sudden shift of John’s weight against Scott’s hand. “Hold the line, Virg. He’s just about back, I’ll ask him.” And in a blink they’re back on the ground, just outside the building’s front doors. It’s not the twenty-eight storeys of height that it was, but John drops like a rock.

Even from only four or five feet, even if he’s expecting to fall, John still staggers when his feet hit the ground and Scott catches his arm until he’s been steadied. “Back?” he questions, as John shakes his head a few times to clear it, rubs at his eyes. “Anything to report?”

“It’s too early,” John answers, and his voice is curt, a little on edge. Scott knows better than to take it personally, knows that John’s just tired. “There’ll be something. Maybe in a week or so, something early in the day. It’ll be bad. I can’t tell what, except it’ll be…westward. West of the city. And it’ll be _really_ bad. Something—hot? Bright. I don’t know. Maybe a fire.”

Scott nods. “We’ll make sure Gordon’s available, I guess. Uh, speaking of, Virgil called, about Gordon. He hasn’t been able to make contact with him, wanted to see if you could check in.” He adjusts his tone, still with a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, and gently, “Only if you’re up to it, John.”

John straightens, his spine stiffening slightly. “If Gordon’s in trouble, then I kind of have to be, don’t I?”

Scott sighs, but doesn’t say anything, just nods again and brings his comm up . “We’re on our way, Titan. Any word from Aquarian yet?”

“I’m supposed to be _Cuttlefish_ , since you wouldn’t let me have Squidboy, but never mind.” It’s Gordon, not Virgil who answers, so that sorts that out. “I’m fine! Virg was just getting antsy because he’s trying to hold a damn hydro dam together, couldn’t give a guy a break to get some _real_ work done—“

There’s an audible splash and a yell of protest and then Virgil’s back on the line, clearing his throat. “Yeah, ignore him. I think we’ve got the dam patched up, but there’s something you should take a look at anyway. Gordon found a…well, we don’t know what it is. Some sort of device, was at the base of the power plant. None of the engineers here seem to know what it is. We were hoping John could figure out where it came from, what it does. You wanna meet us here, or back at base?”

Scott doesn’t say so, but he wants to get John back home, away from the stress and bustle of a heavily populated area. Scott is, frequently, jealous of Alan, because Alan can fly at near super-sonic speeds and who _wouldn’t_ want that? He occasionally wishes he could take a hit the way Virgil can, absorbing and redirecting energy of all types. Gordon—well. Scott can’t imagine _anyone_ wanting what Gordon has, because the thought of being able to become completely aqueous makes Scott queasy, but Gordon’s never seemed to have a problem with it. Thrives on it, in fact. He doesn’t envy Gordon, but he understands him, at least.

Scott’s never envied John. With the way everybody relies on him and his eerie pseudo-prescience—sometimes Scott can’t understand how he copes. John’s the only member of the family who can’t turn his abilities _off_.

So the pre-dawn emptiness of the Taiwanese city isn’t empty, for John. It’s full of whispers and threads of potential, probabilities rippling and unfolding over and under and through each other, all these lives resonating together. And somewhere in the not too distant future, John can feel panic, terror, the looming possibility of pain and chaos and death.

In spite of this, it’s Scott he’s looking at, with a wan, knowing smile, acutely aware of his brother’s concern. There’s no way in the world he couldn’t be. “I’m fine, Scott. You worry too much.” John flicks his comm on and takes over. “We’ll be there soon, Virgil.”

Well. Of course he wouldn’t need to _say it_ , in the company of the family psychic. “You say so, Johnny,” he agrees, and puts a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. In a blink they’re standing atop the Oregon hydro dam, and Gordon and Virgil are waving from the causeway down below the structure. “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a strange, squarish device and whatever its purpose, it’s not immediately obvious. There’s still water streaming out of it, Gordon found it at the very base of the dam, looking like it didn’t belong there, and he’d done the only reasonable thing and brought it to the surface. The four of them are standing around it in a loose circle and Scott’s got his arms folded, chewing his lower lip. John hasn’t touched it yet, but usually he doesn’t need to.

“You’re not getting _anything_?” Virgil prompts, nudging the device with the toe of his boot. “No idea what it is, where it came from? Jeez, John. Off day?”

John kneels in front of the thing, still not touching it. Just looking it over, focused and intent. “I didn’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know, it’s—it’s weird, it’s like it’s—like a blackhole. There’s just _nothing_ coming off it. I don’t know what it does, I don’t know anything about who owns it, or who put it there—I don’t know where it came from.” He smiles a little, and despite what he’s just told Virgil, there’s weariness in it. “I actually kind of like it. It’s peaceful.”

“It’s _sinister_ ,” Gordon corrects. He’s gotten a hold of a handful of water from the reservoir and phases it absentmindedly through his fingers, one hand to the other, never content in idleness. “I wouldn’t have brought it up if it wasn’t going to do anything. It’s probably just some piece of junk, but had kind of a weird feeling about it. Still do. Give it to Alan, he can do a flyby somewhere and pitch it in a volcano. Kid doesn’t get enough to do.”

“It’s got the look of something someone made. And at the bottom of a hydro dam? We’re not pitching it into a volcano,” Scott answers. “John, do you think you could get anything if Virgil gave you a bit of extra juice?”

John shrugs. “Maybe. First, let me try—“ He reaches for the object, heavy and dark and—like Gordon says—sinister.

And then everything goes _wrong_.

As soon as his fingertips touch the surface of the device he’s pitched backward off his knees, _screaming_. John’s back arches, spasming, as his heels kick and scrabble against the concrete beneath him, even as Scott and Virgil hit the ground on either side of him, frantic.

“John? _John_!”

It takes the both of them to pin him down and he’s still thrashing against Scott’s hands on his shoulders, Virgil’s broad palms cradling his head, even as he twists away, still in agony. Scott manages to catch his brother’s jaw and hold him still for a moment, just long enough to get a look at his face, his eyes.

Except the eyes staring back at him aren’t John’s eyes.

They’re a flat, muddy gold colour, staring and viciously hostile. John jerks away again and his hands are clenching, grasping at nothing until they find purchase on Scott’s suit, and then they twist in the fabric. He’s stopped screaming, but his breathing is ragged and harsh, gasping. His eyes flicker, flash back to green again and lock with Scott’s. “ _Help_ —“ is all he manages, before his spine arcs again under a fresh assault from whatever force was channeled through the strange device.

“Virgil, shut him down,” Scott urges, even as Virgil’s gathering the redhead up, pressing a hand against his brother’s heaving chest. Virgil’s a powerhouse. They haven’t found the limit yet, but if it produces energy and Virgil can get his hands on it, he can absorb it like a spring absorbing shock, or an insulator absorbing heat, and either dissipate or divert it. There’s a faint line of white light around Virgil’s hands, almost invisible in the late afternoon sunshine, as he pulls whatever energy that’s affecting John away, nullifying it. The strange golden tint to his irises fades, even as John’s eyes slide out of focus and he slackens in Virgil’s arms, ashen pale and shaking.

Gordon’s still staring at the device, which has come alive, reverberating on the concrete below them. Somehow he’s the only one who hears the dam behind them starting to crack, concrete creaking and groaning, starting to buckle. “…uh oh. Oh man. I think I just figured out what that thing does. Scotty, I dunno what’s up with John, but I don’t think being hit by an entire reservoir is gonna fix it. You guys’d better get out of here. It’s about to get _kind of wet_.” He puts a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Hey, d’you maybe feel like helping me redirect an _entire goddamn river_ before it overruns the regulating dam downstream and floods the local watershed? Limited time offer.”

“John’s—“

“I’ve got him,” Scott answers curtly. “Give me that thing, you two have work to do. Whatever it is—Brains will have to figure out how disable it, or maybe Kayo. But Gordon’s right, sticking around and _drowning_ won’t help. We can’t stay here.”

Virgil’s hand leaves John’s chest, tentative and cautious, as though he expects his brother to seize and spasm in agony again—but nothing happens. The trembling’s stopped, but his breathing is still shallow and effortful, and he doesn’t seem to have made it all the way back to consciousness. Virgil hauls him halfway to his feet. Scott’s face is grim as he gets one of John’s arms over his shoulders and reaches for a handle on the boxy, menacing device. “We’ll be okay. Get the river under control.”

Gordon’s already at the edge of the causeway, about to plunge into the water and take control of the river, and he nods. “You got it, boss. Gimme a minute and then jump in, Virg.”

Gordon doesn’t wait for confirmation. He takes two bouncing, almost enthusiastic steps and then launches himself off the edge, vanishing as he aquefies and becomes part of the body of water. The river surges in response as Gordon starts to take control. Between his abilities and a boost of power from Virgil—it’ll still be bad. But not as bad as it could be. The dam behind them is starting to break in earnest, fissures bursting and white water frothing through the cracks. It’s time to go.

Virgil turns to follow him with a last look at his older siblings. His gaze lingers on John and he grimaces. “Wonder if he saw this one coming,” he comments, rolling his shoulders as he prepares to follow Gordon.

“Keep in touch. Report back as soon as you can.”

“FAB, Guardian.”

Scott doesn’t feel like the codename suits him, even as he and John blink halfway across the planet, back to the island, and home.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, of _course_ Gordon can wrangle a river. If it’s wet, fluid, and at least fifty-percent aqueous, Gordon can do whatever the hell he wants with it.

No one really _gets_ the water thing, and Gordon’s given up trying to explain. The mere mention of his little brother _liquefying_ freaks Scott out to no end, he won’t even talk about it. It’s a shame about Scott, because of all of his brothers, Gordon suspects Scott’s got the closest analogue to what he can do. Gordon’s never said so, but the idea of Scott popping out of physical existence and reappearing instantly elsewhere makes his head hurt.

John, at least, can get his brain around the idea, but John’s brain gets tangled up and wound around _everything_ ; he can’t actually help it. Virgil, in typical stoic fashion, only ever wants to know where he should be and what he should suck the energy out of, whether that’s a tidal surge during an ocean rescue, or the flow of an undammed river. Alan, true to form, thinks Gordon’s (and everyone else’s) abilities are lame, and if Gordon can’t talk to fish then he doesn’t particularly care for the details.

Gordon’s tried talking to fish, but the language barrier is insurmountable.

Water doesn’t have a language. Water doesn’t _need_ one. Gordon’s no longer human, and so Gordon doesn’t either. Gordon can’t explain it.

Gordon hits the water, phases into it, and just _exists_. He’s not himself anymore, not even human, but better, unbridled and powerful; pure, simple force. Every corner of his mind expands, thoughts swirling and spreading out beyond humanity, feeling the deep ridges of the riverbed, the smooth surface of the concrete dam, even as it buckles, and the wall of cement becomes a wall of water and tumbling rubble. He feels it when Virgil cannonballs into the beginning of the surge, but this is the least interesting thing happening. He can feel the fish panicking, he can feel the weeds starting to pull upward against the rising swell of the current, and _then_ —

Oh holy _shit_.

Probably this is the best thing he’s ever felt, probably this is the best thing that’s ever happened _ever_. There are over a billion gallons of water falling towards him and it’s a rush of wind and froth and foam and gravity, a roiling cascade of raw elemental power. Gordon’s not currently up to the standard capacities of actual human emotion, but he’s never been more excited in his entire life. Rivers don’t feel anything, but Gordon certainly does.

The sheer power of the pressure rupturing the dam above him is awe-inspiring, in the literal meaning of the term. For the first few moments, Gordon loses himself in the immensity of it, can’t help himself. Whatever it is that keeps him cohesive in this state manages to get back under control, but it’s _hard_. This is _exciting_ , even if it _is_ a very large, very expensive disaster. But it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to get hurt, so Gordon can have at least a _little_ fun. And however much or little anyone else understands, there’s no explaining how much he loves this.

And then Virgil _ruins it_.

Virgil— _stupid_ Virgil, stupid energy vortex, stupid boring middle child—diminishes the roaring onrush of reservoir water down into a slow, heaving swell, like the roll of an ocean wave over deep water. Still powerful, but slow. Boring. _Responsible_. What would have been a roaring tide ripping white-water through the deep channel cut by the river’s original, ancient path—is instead just a slow, gradual swell, draining like bathwater. Stupid tiny human _Virgil_.

Gordon sighs (or the aqueous equivalent of sighing), even as there’s that familiar flow of strength into whatever part of him handles this kind of power. If he’s not going to get to be an entire dammed up lake, unchained after half a century, then what’s the point? Might as well be human.

So he is, coalescing back into himself and letting the thrill of his power leave him. He lingers, melancholy, at the bottom of the riverbed for a moment, then kicks off the rocky bottom and pops up to the surface like a cork. The river doesn’t need much direction, and it won’t, not ‘til they hit the regulating dam further downstream and need to keep it from flooding the secondary reservoir—but the current is still brisk, even with Virgil reining it in.

When he turns, he spots Virgil treading water behind him, and his older brother’s face is terrified, stricken.

_That’s_ not normal.

“There was someone on the dam!” Virgil yells, eyes wild. “On top, when it fell, I saw him! We have to—“

Gordon blinks, a little bit stuipdly. “Uh, how ‘bout _no_? No! There’s no one in the water!” he yells back. “I’d know, I—“

“I _saw_ the guy,” Virgil protests, and he’s already started to swim back upriver. He pushes powerful strokes against the current, diminishing it to calm stillness around him, as he swims directly into the flow of debris and detritus awash in the water from the crumbling dam. He’s not concentrating, and the flow of water increases, washes Gordon rapidly backward, away from Virgil.

“ _Virgil!_ “ Gordon shouts over the roar of water, but he’s swept around a bend in the river and he only just phases back in time to avoid being slammed into the steep, craggy banks of the river, unleashed.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s someone in the water, a dark, struggling figure, surrounded by the raging water of the broken dam, rising higher as Virgil swims against the current. He can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman or if they’re even still alive, but he has to try. Gordon had been shouting, but with his goal in sight, whatever he might’ve said seems far away and unimportant.

He can’t see Gordon any longer anyway, all he can seem to focus on is the dark figure, distant and desperate, demanding his attention, his _help_. He’s overwhelmed by the compulsion to reach them. There’s just nothing else in the entire world.

Virgil’s the family rock. He can take whatever’s thrown at him and then some, and it leaves everybody with the illusion that he’s stronger than he is.

When this had all started, he’d been only sixteen, and their father had hit him with a truck. It hadn’t been the first test of what Virgil was capable of, but it had been the most frightening. It had been the first time he’d really felt his life was in danger, even against all the assurances, even with the knowledge that he could do amazing things. With his hands out in front of him, braced, Virgil had stood fast while a ton and a half of his father’s pick-up had come barreling down the long driveway of the farmhouse in Kansas where he’d grown up with his brothers.

And he’d taken the hit, and he’d known from that moment on that he always would.

But it had given him that flash of insight into what it was like to be terrified, vulnerable, and wishing that someone would save him. So the magnetic pull of the figure in the water is more than just his calling, for Virgil. It’s a compulsion.

He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s more than _that_ , too.

“Hold on!” he yells, and wishes he could get a better look at the person who needs him, wishes there’d be an answering shout. “I’m coming!”

Except he doesn’t seem to be getting any closer, and the water’s rough and getting rougher as the slow swell from the broken dam slips away from his control, and becomes a roaring torrent. It doesn’t touch Virgil, he’s thrown up a buffer of calm water all around him, and the raging surge flows past him. He just can’t seem to get any closer to the figure in the water. He can hear Gordon shouting again, and he manages to break his gaze away, but he doesn’t find Gordon when he turns to look. Something draws his gaze upward.

There’s a man on the riverbank above him. He’s in a dark suit and he’s staring at Virgil with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eyes. Golden, flat and hostile. The same eyes that hadn’t been John’s.

It’s enough to break his focus and the last thing he sees before the river sweeps him under is those golden eyes, turning away.

 _Now_ there’s someone in the water, in desperate need of help.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

**Kansas, A Long Time Ago**

* * *

 

There was once a dark room, and it was the whole of her childhood. Just a dark, mostly empty room, with its narrow cot and its small toilet, sink. No mirror. Bare concrete, steel door.

And Uncle. With the golden eyes and the tray full of needles, and the way he never spoke to her face, but only in her head. She doesn’t know if he’s really her uncle, she can’t remember her parents. If he _is_ her uncle, then he seems to be the only family she has.

That is, until the earthquake. She doesn’t know if she caused the earthquake, though she had certainly wished for _something_ to happen. A little girl who was tired of the dark and sick of the needles and longing for a freedom she had never known, had wished to know if there was a world beyond her walls.

When the day comes, she’s not ready for it. The room shudders and shakes itself apart, and her entire world cracks open like an egg, only with the bright yellow yolk on the outside instead of the inside. The first time she sees the sun, she screams, blinded, and stumbles helplessly out, and falls a long way to the ground, far farther than a little girl should be able to survive. She picks herself up, shaken, and then walks nearly a mile over dusty rock and rubble, frightened and alone and crying in the silence of her mind for Uncle. Uncle who has never been kind, but _has_ been the only person she’s ever known.

Then she meets the strange man.

Admittedly, she’s the stranger of the pair of them, because when she realizes someone is looking at her, still half blind and dazed in the sun and the heat—-she vanishes. Blinks into invisibility in the middle of the ruin and the rubble. And the strange man yells in surprise.

She does the only thing she knows how to—talks to him in her head. She’s startled when he freezes and stares straight at her—at the place where it appears she isn’t. His mind is different than Uncle’s. Not as sharp, not as crisp and familiar. But warm, kind. Those are both new sensations and she shimmers back into visibility.

She holds her hand out, and Jeff Tracy takes it. With nowhere else to take her, the strange man takes her home.

* * *

Home isn’t the home they all were born in, but it’s better than the house that’s been empty, hollow without Lucille Tracy at the heart of it. With their mother dead and gone, home is a farm in the middle of the part of nowhere that’s called Kansas, and the Tracys have only been there for half a year.

Kayo is ten when she arrives, though she doesn’t know it, it’s just what the doctor who’s supervised her immigration guessed her age at. She’s not Kayo yet either, that’ll come just a little bit later. She’s Tanusha Kyrano, but she’s never known any more than that.

She peers over the truck’s dashboard and gets her first sight of the boys, crowded on the porch as their father’s pickup comes rumbling up to the house. The first thing she senses is the _grief_ still radiating off of them, different shades of melancholy blue; deep inky black; raw, angry red. She doesn’t really know that feeling, and it frightens her. The second thing she perceives is their curiosity, their wariness, the way they’re not sure who she is or why she’s here.

Because she’s an intruder. This is _their_ safe place, this strange, sunblasted world with its dome of blue heaven and its seas of golden wheat. There’s a grain elevator, small and distant on the horizon, but otherwise the farmhouse is a world unto itself. If this meant to be a prison, it’s a prison without walls. If it’s meant to be a home, it’s a lonely one, but it’s _theirs_. She’s new, she’s strange, with her bright green eyes and her dark skin and hair. She stands with her hands in fists at her sides as Jeff introduces his sons.

It’s Alan—five years old and lisping through the spaces occupied by three lost teeth—who breaks the ice and first calls her Kayo. _Tanusha Kyrano_ is more than he’s confident enough to try to say, but he knows there’s a K and he knows there’s an O, and he does his best.

It’s the first time anyone makes her laugh.

* * *

Kayo’s there the day that Gordon nearly dies, and he _would have_ , if she _hadn’t_ been there. The day she really becomes a part of their family, the day she finally understands just what loss means to the boys, and the day her secrets became theirs.

It’s the grain elevator, with its magnetic pull like the pole of a compass. Jeff is away on business, Kayo and the boys are in their grandmother’s care, and the grain elevator is only a two mile trek across the wheatfields. And it’s a hot, hazy summer day, and the pond behind the house was lukewarm and stagnant, and no one felt like jumping in.

It was Virgil who’d looked out towards the horizon, and marveled at the fact that in two and a half years, they’d never gone to see the tall, queerly shaped building that was the only landmark for miles. And so, with a shouted advisory to Grandma of where they were going, off they’d gone.

Kayo agrees to take turns with Virgil carrying Alan piggyback, and they were competing to see who could carry the skinny seven-year-old for longer. Gordon keeps barreling ahead, anxious to get to the strange, magical structure that’s been pulling them towards the edge of the sky since the very first day they’d arrived at the farmhouse. When he drops back to badger Virgil or Kayo, then it’s Scott and John, companionably leading the way, talking about school. They’ve all been homeschooled, telecomms providing lessons from some of the best schools in the world. Scott’s about to graduate and John’s right on his heels, though he’s two years younger and only sixteen, he’ll still be out of school before the year’s out. He’s already started submitting college applications and the excitement glows off him like starlight.

There’s been the inevitable talk of them leaving, the two oldest, making their way out into the world to get their respective educations. Scott’s had his sights set on the Air Force Academy in Northern Colorado, John’s starry-eyed and in love with Princeton and its Astrophysics program. There’ll be no expense spared, not for either of them. Jeff will set each of his boys up with whatever education they want and private jets will be available to fly them home for Sunday dinner, if ever they’re lonely. Kayo’s coming slowly to the realization that one day, she’ll be offered the same sort of treatment.

But for now it’s summer, perhaps their last summer, and she’s content to enjoy it.

Gordon gets impatient, in typical fashion, and runs ahead, and starts to climb. Kayo feels his frustration, how much he’d hated to hear Scott and John talk about going away. It’s defeated, boyish rage, and deep, aching betrayal at the idea of his two big brothers leaving him. Gordon’s just _mad_ , secretly and deep inside, and he has been since the first day she’d met him. Her heart has always gone out to Gordon, and the way he can’t help but get angry at the things that hurt.

As they approach, she’s impressed to see him clambering into a second storey window of the rickety old grain elevator. She feels the moment that he loses his grip, the sudden _!_ of emotion, sharp like a puncture. She hears the sound of the impact, the hoarse scream of pain, and the sound of Scott shouting, but not the words. Virgil curses and drops Alan down from his back, breaking immediately into a sprint.

Kayo stops. And blinks. And gets to the blonde boy’s side first, covering three hundred yards in the space of a heartbeat. She hasn’t even noticed that she’s done it, dropping to her knees next to Gordon and not knowing what to do. The fall wasn’t that far, in her life she’s fallen further, but there’d been some twisted, mangled old piece of machinery hidden in the tall prairie grass, and _of course_ he’s gone and landed on it. There’s blood and bone and ragged breathing and she’s just staring at him, and she comes to the abrupt realization that he’s dying.

Scott and the others are running, shouting and bewildered, but she has a lightning bolt realization and latches onto Gordon. She’s never teleported someone else before—she hasn’t used her powers at _all_ in the entire two years—but her control is hardwired into her, taut and exquisite. And somehow she _knows_ she can do it.

That’s only the first part, as she whisks him away, and the both of them plunge into the warm, stagnant pond, back at the farmhouse. Kayo’s hands clench around his wrists, and she wills him to dissipate, to dissolve into the murky green water.

And he does. And in her head, in the place where the Tracys’ emotions had been muddled up in hers—panic, fear, confusion, bewilderment—there’s just Gordon, or the idea of Gordon, anyway. No more pain, no more feeble sparks of terror—just a sort of vague bemusement, peace.

In that moment she remembers a long ago day, in her dark, bare room, when Uncle had brought in a knife and sliced open her palm. He had plunged it into a bucket of cold water, with blood trailing upward, hot and painful. In the dizzy silence of her mind, he had told her what she tells Gordon. His mind is all around her, a little bit stifled and confused in the muddy pond water, but recognizing her. And listening, as she thinks:

_Concentrate. Be. You’re still yourself. Put yourself back together. You know how._

By the time Scott and Virgil come barrelling up the driveway, Gordon’s been back to normal. Or, at least, he’s unhurt, if a little wild-eyed and shaken.

And she has no choice, now. There’s a curious sort of calm radiating out from her center, and Kayo patiently explains what exactly she’d done, once, twice, a third time, as the rest of the family crowds around her and her brother. Scott stands with his arms folded. Virgil slowly gets his breath back from the run with his hands on his knees. Alan clambers out of John’s arms to latch on to Gordon, as they listen. All five of them hear the explanation three times, wide-eyed and not really understanding.

So Kayo opens her mind, and the boys all grow still and silent around her, as she begins to unravel her story into each of their minds. The colours and vague impressions of feelings and thoughts all begin to grow clearer as slowly, somehow, now that they know she’s there, they begin to open up to her. They learn her story, and she learns theirs.

By the time she finishes, they’re finally, really, her family.

* * *

Scott withdraws his application to college. It’s not that long after Gordon’s fall, maybe a week. He stands in the dining room with his hand on Kayo’s shoulder, and said that if it could be done, he was more than willing to share what Kayo had. And his brothers—and hers—had stood alongside him and agreed. Kayo came between their family and another tragedy. They owed her. And it wasn’t fair that she should be alone in the world.

And Jeff Tracy, like he’d been expecting this, just nods his assent.

Brains arrives not a week later—gawky and awkward and in possession of three PHDs at only twenty-four—and sets up his lab in the refurbished barn out behind the house.

Walking into it for the first time, Kayo’s memory goes skittering back to the dark room, the needles, and her golden-eyed Uncle. She’s never known what his reasons were, or if he had some purpose in mind. She’s never known what he meant to make of her, only that he’d always had something more, some other torment to inflict, some other serum to force upon her. The boys have seen only a fraction of what she can do, but she suspects that their father knows far, far more. She suspects he's always wanted this.

But instead of asking, in exchange, he’s given her a family— _his_ family. And she’ll do anything for them.

So one late summer day, she rolls up her sleeve, and offers all that her blood has made her.


	6. Chapter 6

Scott tends to get a little imprecise under pressure. When he flashes into existence back on the island, with John’s weight still borne across his shoulders, the pair of them crash land in the middle of Alan’s homework, tumbling the table over and sending their youngest brother toppling backwards out of his chair, landing with a yelp and an immediately bruised tailbone.

Everything about flight that’s intuitive while he’s actually flying is decidedly _unintuitive_ when it’s hard numbers and data, so in Alan’s opinion, even a violent interruption is a small price to pay for a distraction from academia. His butt hurts from his undignified tumble and he so rarely has a legitimate excuse to chew his big brothers out, so he lays it on thick, “Jeez, Scott! Work on your aim!”

Scott’s gone sprawling over the front of the table, and he’s curled on his side on the floor, breathing hard. John’s pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, a few feet away. Neither of them answer. Alan pauses, trying to remember where they’d been. Thailand? Taipei. Somewhere far off, a long jump for Scott. Sometimes it leaves him drained to make too many trips in a short span of time, and with a passenger especially. The _passenger’s_ usually fine, though, and John clearly isn’t. “Uh. Guys? Scott? Johnny?”

“Alan, get—“ Scott’s already on his way back to his feet, and the end of the sentence would have been _away from John_ , but it’s too late. Alan’s already crept over, put his hand on John’s shoulder. When John looks up at the contact, there’s a flash of gold, and then Alan’s shoved to the floor, and his big brother is on top of him, his knees pinning Alan’s arms painfully to the ground.

Alan yells again, sharp and panicked. The sound is abruptly strangled—literally strangled—as a pair of hands close around his throat.

Alan _kicks_ , flailing skinny legs and struggling uselessly against someone with fifty pounds of weight and nine years of age on him. He can’t get his hands up to claw at the fingers around his windpipe and it _hurts_. He’s terrified and he doesn’t know what to do, his thoughts rocketing up through a wash of adrenaline, trying desperately to understand what’s happened to his brother.

Scott’s cursing, shouting for backup, even as he scrambles over the toppled table and grabs hold of John. One of the hands around Alan’s throat comes free, swinging blindly at Scott, and Alan manages a wheezing, choked breath, flooding clarity into his brain.

The weight of Scott yanking him backwards pulls John— _not_ John, someone else, someone horrible and golden-eyed and _monstrous_ —far enough off Alan for him to get one of his arms free and bring one of his knees up, braced to keep John off of him. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Brains coming up from the floor below, confusion written on his features as he stumbles at the top of the stairs.

John’s face above him is a nightmare, furious and unrecognizable. Alan twists, vicious with panic, and manages to bring his other foot up, planting it firmly on John’s hip and _shoving_ with every ounce of strength he still has.

John lurches backward and immediately whirls on Scott, growling, as a pair of hands snag Alan by the back of his shirt and pull him bodily away, across the hardwood floor and out of the redhead’s reach.

“ _Keep back_ ,” Kayo hisses in his ear, and he feels her move invisibly past him. He doesn’t plan to do anything else, still gasping to get his breath back as he retreats to the relative safety of the underside of the dining room table. His fingers are trembling as he probes at his bruising throat and watches wide-eyed, as Kayo enters the fray.

Scott’s only just managed to keep his feet, falling back, but he’s at a disadvantage. There’s nothing he can do but give ground in an attempt to avoid their brother’s ferocious onslaught, but a misstep sends him staggering and tripping to the floor. One of John’s fists swings backward—Alan’s pretty sure John’s never thrown a punch in his _life_ before now—but his elbow snags in midair. Kayo, having caught it, shimmers into visibility, her eyes fierce and her teeth clenched. She plants a sharp kick to the back of John’s leg and he drops to his knees with a hoarse shout. Mercilessly, she releases his arm to grab a fistful of his hair, and then jerks his head back so she can see his face.

For a moment, Kayo stares directly into a pair of mutedly gleaming golden eyes, wild and frenzied and emphatically _not_ John’s tranquil blue-green. Her face goes still and _her_ eyes widen with something like recognition. Then her wrist flicks backward and a pair of arcing contact points unfold from her wristguard. She lets John go, and immediately jabs her taser into the middle of his back.

John collapses, and it’s all over, except for the sound of ragged breathing from the oldest and youngest boys. Kayo’s the only one still standing, barely ruffled.

The room feels like it’s reverberating around Alan, ringing like a bell. He’s shocked and still can’t quite manage to get to his feet as he crawls out from under the kitchen table. His voice is cracked and feeble and he doesn’t feel all the way in control of it as he stammers, “…i-is…is he dead? Oh, god, John. _John_? K-Kayo?”

“No,” Scott’s answer doesn’t sound certain, his own voice is shaking, though he still starts to shuffle across the floor, trying to reach their brother to check on him.

“No,” Kayo confirms, catching Scott’s hand before he can reach for John. “Don’t touch him,” she advises, even as she does, gently pulling John’s shoulder until he’s halfway on his side. She thumbs one of his eyelids open, but sighs with relief. Blue-green again, if blank and unfocused. “Okay. Brains?” she calls to the family scientist, and he creeps warily to the top of the stairs again, peering into the kitchen with concern etched on his features. “Can you check on Alan?”

Alan wishes he could deny needing to be checked on, as Brains crosses the room and helps him up, but he’s still shaking like a leaf and can’t quite seem to get his feet beneath him. His knees feel like they’ve gone to jelly. Brains’ hands are warm and steady as he looks Alan over, and though it hurts when he swallows, he’s okay. If anything, he’s just numb and a little dazed, but not so dazed that he can’t ask, “…what…what happened to John?”

He doesn’t ask if John’s okay, because obviously he isn’t. Scott and Kayo have pulled him up off the floor, and the fingers of his left hand are twitching spasmodically over Kayo’s shoulder, though he’s hanging limp between his brother and adopted sister. Brains volunteers his basement lab when Kayo says something about psi shielding, about restraints.

And no one answers Alan’s question.


	7. Chapter 7

Virgil wishes it was unfamiliar, the sensation of Gordon’s hands planted on his chest, and water being forced up, out of his nose, mouth. His brother’s kneeling over him, intent as he concentrates on pulling the water out of Virgil’s airway. There’s a last, warm gush of liquid up through his throat, and it brings silt, grit from the riverbottom along with it before Virgil manages to roll over and push himself up, hacking and choking on his own, spitting up mud and shoving his brother away as he struggles to his knees.

“Gordon, _ow_. Get off!”

Gordon’s glaring at him, furious, and he shoves Virgil right back, knocks him off his knees to fall squarely on his ass. “If I _say_ there’s no one in the water, then there’s _no one in the water_. Because _I would know!_ “

Virgil’s been knocked back on his elbows and he’s still out of breath, doesn’t quite absorb all the impact of Gordon shoving him. He shakes his head and mutters, “ Yeah, yeah—“

“No, _not_ ‘yeah, yeah’, you _idiot_! I needed you and you weren’t there and you didn’t _listen_! This is my _job_ and I didn’t get to do it, because your stupid ass needed saving. Now it’s a _disaster_ and it didn’t have to be and… and screw you, Virgil, d’you know what it feels like when someone’s drowning in the middle of that much goddamn water? No. None of you ever _get it_. I could barely _think_ straight. There isn’t up or down or _anything_ anymore in the middle of something like that and I can’t _handle it_ , I can’t _cope_ with that kinda power except then I still had to find _you_ —“ Gordon’s voice runs out on him unexpectedly, breaks just a little. He manages to pull it together just long enough to finish, “—and I didn’t think I was going to.”

Gordon gets scrappy when he gets scared, and there’s that little catch of fear in his voice, the one Virgil knows to listen for. It takes him a few more minutes to clear his head and start to get his breath back. “ _You_ okay, Gord?” he tries, managing to string most of the sentence together without coughing.

This is answered with a moody grunt and Gordon pushes a hand through his hair, damp and muddy. The river below them is beyond all control, roaring past the bank where they’ve taken refuge. He pulls his knees up to his chest and stares at the water, surging and white and disastrous. “It’s overrun the regulating dam,” he comments, brooding. “I couldn’t hold it back. Definitely couldn’t bring it all with me when I had to go looking for _you_. I had a hard enough time flushing you out once the dam really let go. What the _hell_ , Virgil.”

“…I know. It’s just—I _swear_ I saw something—“ He holds up a hand before Gordon can snarl at him again, “—but I know I didn’t. You’d have known if there was someone in the water.”

“Damn right.”

“No pun intended,” Virgil jokes weakly, though it isn’t funny.

Gordon punches him in the shoulder, to no effect. You can’t punch Virgil. Or, you _can_ , but there’s no point. Virgil winces politely anyway, in deference to his brother’s obvious irritation, and rubs his nose, raw inside from the water flushed through it. The watershed downstream will be flooded. It’s a loss, and a bad one. There’ll be environmental damage, property damage—the area’s relatively unpopulated and the rise of water will be slow as the water overruns the banks of the reservoir downstream, but people will still be forced from their homes.

“There _was_ a guy, though. On the riverbank. And on the dam before that. And I just—Gordon, I dunno what came over me. I don’t usually just break off and forget our objectives. _You’re_ the one without any damn sense.”

There’s another punch to his shoulder, but it’s pure reflex by now, the impact dissipates and Virgil barely notices. Gordon’s lightening up a bit, anyway, but Virgil’s staring back upriver, towards the dam, towards the place where he’d seen the dark-suited man.

“He had eyes like John did,” Virgil says, distantly, remembering. “The man on the dam.”

Gordon pales and his expression drops. “Shit, I forgot about John. I didn’t…what happened to him?”

Shrugging, Virgil gets up and stretches, rubbing at his chest. This is going to bruise, probably, from where he failed to absorb the impact of Gordon bullying water out of his lungs. “No idea. Some psychic thing, I guess, you know how he gets. Hope that’s all it was, anyway. I don’t know, though—his eyes went funny, and I’ve got a _bad_ feeling…you didn’t get a look at him, did you?”

The younger brother shakes his head, hauling himself to his feet. It’s been a long day. “I had my mind on other things. When the dam started to go—“ Gordon trails off and shakes his head, shoulders slumping. “We’ve gotta get home.”

Virgil nods and glances at his comm. “Bet anything Scott’s not up to another trip. Let alone two.”

Gordon perks up slightly; ever so hopefully brighter as he arches an eyebrow at his brother. “Yeah? Yeah, no, better not even call him. Probably things are crazy back home. Probably they don’t need any more bad news either, probably got their hands full with John. We, uh, we definitely need a ride though. Right?”

Virgil elbows his brother in the ribs, smiles just slightly. “You wanna place the call, or shall I?”

There’s the mirroring grin, the one that’s usually impossible to wipe off Gordon’s face. “Oh, I got it. You take a breather, Virg, you nearly drowned. I got this.”

Gordon still has mud in his hair and smudged on his face, and Virgil imagines he doesn’t look much better himself. But Gordon’s clapped him on the shoulder and moved off a few paces, idly brushing his hair into place and swiping at his cheeks with the back of a muddy sleeve. Virgil rolls his eyes, even as the holocomm on Gordon’s wrist chimes and lights up and a tiny blonde figure appears.

“Lady Grey.” Gordon's _really_ beaming now. “How’re you?”

She inclines her head gracefully. “Aquarian. I’m quite well. You’re looking rather more disheveled than usual, is everything quite all right?” Her voice is musical in greeting, and a shadow of smile plays across the woman’s face.

There’s a complete and utter failure to play the reason for the call off as casual. “Oh, uh. Well, now that you mention it, me and Titan kinda need a lift. Uh, back to the island. If it’s not too far out of your way, you know, and if you wouldn’t mind—“

“Of course, it would be my pleasure. Send me your coordinates and Parker and I will be en route shortly. Say hello to your brother for—oh, never mind, there he is. Hello, Titan!”

Virgil’s already appeared over Gordon’s shoulder. “Hey, Lady Grey. Yeah, you’ll be able to see us from the air, just look for the part of Oregon that’s slowly flooding. Someone destroyed a dam.”

Gordon shoots him a look, even as Lady Grey frowns slightly. “Oh dear. Are you both all right?”

“Yeah, but it was a close one. Do you know anything about a guy with golden eyes? Dark suit, bald, kinda menacing…I didn’t get a good look at him, but I think—“

The Lady’s tone grows sharp, urgent and she cuts him off. “Stay exactly where you are, both of you. I’ll be there in an hour. Talk to no one else, not even your brothers. After this call, close all comms. I’ll call the island and let them know you’re both safe. Do not respond to any further distress calls. You’ve drawn the attention of a very dangerous man.”

The call cuts off abruptly, before either of them can say anything. The look that passes between the two brothers as they both sit back down at the edge of the roaring river says plenty.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s heartbreakingly unfair, how the first thoughts he thinks aren’t his own thoughts at all. His own thoughts are still too weak and muddled to compete with everything else.

So the first thing he’s aware of, dim and distant, is just how _worried_ everybody is. About a lot of things, but mostly about him. The island is a buzzing hive of anxiety, resonating on everyone’s individual frequency—Scott and Alan, Kayo and Grandma—and most prominently Brains, nearby as he must be, radiating concern and sympathy as he putters around the basement lab. The scientist is also vaguely abstracted by some idea that John’s not familiar with. Whatever it is, he can tell it’s about change _everything_. He doesn’t know how it’ll do so, but whatever Brains has cooked up is about to alter his entire life.

So _that’s_ fun. Or it’s going to be. Maybe.

He wishes it weren’t always so hard to tell.

John’s pulling his brain back together, forcing himself to ignore the background radiation of everybody else’s emotions, marshaling his own thoughts. These aren’t a great deal better, as options go. Regardless of any upcoming shifts in the paradigm of his reality, the current and greater concern is his own stark, rising terror, resurfacing at the memory of someone else in his _head_.

John’s nearly been forced to murder his baby brother.

And now he can’t stop remembering his hands, and the way Alan had twisted and wormed against them; the way he’d just been so much bigger and _stronger_ than his little brother, how easy it had been to overpower Alan, to hurt him. _Wanting_ to hurt him. His heart, hammering inside his chest with rage and adrenaline and hate that wasn’t his. Whoever had been in John’s head had been looking out through his eyes, forward into possible futures, and had fixed on the image of Alan, cold and pale and dead on the floor.

And John can’t stop seeing him, seeing what he could have done, and he can’t seem to break himself out of the looping cycle of grief and horror.

This is what has him jolting back to full consciousness, rolling off of the cot in the corner of Brains’ lab to crumple on the smooth concrete floor, his arms clenched tight around his chest as his breath harshens into ragged sobbing. The inside of his head feels raw and violated, and his grasp of reality keeps switching back and forth. Alan exists in a state of superposition, dead— _murdered_ —in John’s mind and alive outside of it. He slips halfway out of consciousness, overwhelmed, and then gets buffeted back into awareness as Brains notices him, another sharp cascade of somebody else’s emotions.

There’s more scrambling panic as Brains reacts—John feels it, layering over his own internal agony, feels the way Brains is frightened, of and for him. He doesn’t hear the voice with its persistent stutter and its soothing, comforting words. Doesn’t see the pair of hands reaching for him, pulling his fingers free from where they’ve locked around his arms, deep enough to bruise. Doesn’t register it as he’s pulled upward into a half-seated position. Brains’ hands come to rest on his shoulders, and then eventually pull him into a tight embrace. John can’t perceive anything Brains _does_ , but he feels what his friend feels as he does it.

And he feels the panic giving way to fear, feels the fear being bullied down and squelched by concern, by loyalty and compassion. Bravery, even in the face of what they both know John could have done, can still see himself doing. Kindness radiates off of Brains like warmth, stubborn like the heat of a fire, calming and reassuring. John’s mind, choked with thoughts that aren’t his, stops spiraling off into futures that aren’t and won’t be. Starts to drift back to reality. Starts to hear the voice in his ears, the hands on his arms, the way he’s being helped and cared for. Eventually he manages to get a grip and take a shuddering breath, one that doesn’t border up on hyperventilation. Calming down.

“John?” Brains’s voice is still gentle, infinitely kind. “John, is that you?”

Is it? He hopes so. He hopes he’s never any one else, ever again. “…y-yes. Yeah. It’s me. It was…was someone else. Before. But it’s me now.”

Brains helps him up, helps him to sit on the edge of the cot. A warm hand remains on his shoulder, steadying. “Are you okay?”

John’s answering laugh is vaguely hysterical. He hasn’t got the words, but he tries anyway. He just ends up babbling, still overflowing with everybody else’s emotions. “No. No, no, no I’m not. I don’t know what happened but if it happens again it’ll kill me. No. _No_. I’m not okay.”

“E-Easy, John.”

Nothing is easy. He can’t remember _easy_. John’s life has been hard for years, and this isn’t the first time he’s hit a breaking point. This is college all over again. He sucks in a breath through his teeth, forces himself to unclench his jaw and take a few proper deep breaths. “Alan. I hurt Alan.”

Brains doesn’t lie to him, because no one can and so no one ever does, even if it would be kinder. “Yes. B-but not badly, and arguably it wasn’t really you. Alan will be all right. No lasting harm, h-he’s mostly just shaken up. H-how do _you_ feel?”

“No lasting harm,” John echoes, and there’s another bubble of hysteria, composited from everyone else’s emotions again. Somehow he manages to conquer it before it turns into more demented laughter. He shrugs Brains’ hand off his shoulder and drops his face into his hands, the pressure of his palms against his eye sockets doing very little to combat the throbbing pain in his skull. “I feel like my brain’s been freeze-dried to the inside of my skull. I don’t…what was it? The thing from the dam. I blacked out and…and then—then we were back here, and I wasn’t…there was someone else.” He looks up, suddenly afraid that it’s close, that it’ll open a door into his brain again “—it’s not…is it here? W-what was it?”

Brains straightens up and pulls a wheeled chair out from a nearby desk, then sits down and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I haven’t seen it yet. Scott put it somewhere out of reach, where he doesn’t think it can do a-any harm. I wanted to talk to you before I t-took a look. What do you think it was?”

John shudders at the memory of the thing, the way it had just been _empty_ , a void of anything. He feels slightly nauseous to remember how he’d felt drawn to it, how it had seemed calm, peaceful after the roaring mental landscape that had been Taipei. How it had triggered a cascade of searing, blinding pain, how his mind had filled to the brim with somebody _else_ , someone hostile and hateful and _other_. “Pandora’s box. Unlocked it and everything went _wrong_.”

There’s a frown, a sense of disapproval of this sort of unhelpful, airy metaphor. “John…”

“I know, I know. Sorry. It was a trap. I think it was a trap for me. Maybe some sort of psychic trigger? I don’t know. It didn’t do anything to Gordon, but when I touched it, it set of something that blew the hydro dam. I felt that, felt the push. I feel like it channeled something through me, but I don’t know how. Virgil shut me down. And I came out of it for a second, but then—I don’t know where Virgil went. But if he’d handled it, it might’ve been okay. He held it off of me for a minute—that might mean it’s some sort of energy.”

“I’ll t-test it for psionic resonance. You operate in a f-fairly broad band, though, w-we may not be able to close it off. W-we may just need to destroy it.”

“Good riddance.” John shakes his head, slowly coming to the realization that his leg is aching, all the muscles in his back are in an agony of tension and he’s still exhausted. He eases himself backwards across the cot, to lean wearily against the wall. “I never could get my head around the metaphysical side of this—whatever the hell this is.” His head is still buzzing, the way it always does, but worse. And he feels awful, defeated and afraid. “I can’t do this any more. I can’t do this _again_. God, and _Allie_. I’m never going to forget that. Neither will he. I just…I wish—“

Brains interrupts him, and his voice is a little choked. “I know. My very dear friend, I’m so v-very sorry.” Brains sympathy is just about overwhelming, and there’s guilt hanging off of him, grey and cold and like the scent of mildew. He apologizes, the way he has so many times in the past. “Serum Five wasn’t ready. The parameters hadn’t been fine tuned. W-we both knew, but I knew better, and I’ve always regretted—“

For all that Brains is the reason John gained the abilities he did, John’s never blamed him. Sometimes it needs to be stated outright. John wishes that Brains didn’t feel this way, but more for his own sake than for Brains’. The man’s guilt can be near overpowering, and John has enough of his own to deal with. He repeats the same truths he always does. “I knew it as well as you did, I still pushed for it. We had to do _something_ , when Dad disappeared. I was the only one who hadn’t—it was my turn. We needed some way to try and find him. _None_ of us knew what it would mean. I’m okay. I get by. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’ve always w-wished I could make it up to you. Or at least m-make it easier.” There’s a pause and then, hesitantly, “It m-might just be that I can.”

And there’s that paradigm shift. It’s real and its imminent and he can _feel_ it. There’s a note of speculative hope in Brains’ voice, and in John’s future. Something coming, something about to change. John straightens up. “I’m listening.”

“Remember that t-time we scanned your brain?”

This, actually, finally gets a faint smile out of John. “2058 was a hell of a year.”

Brains smiles back and adjusts his glasses. He swivels in his chair and rolls across the lab, over to one of his work tables. Gingerly, he picks up a tray of wires and circuitry and rolls back over, presents it with barely suppressed, radiant pride. “I coded a basic map of your neural pathways. Psionic abilities, precognition, _et al_. Into this.”

It’s a silvery-grey circle, visible nanocircuitry ringing the interior of a band of faintly iridescent metal, about as wide around as John’s spread fingertips. The outer face of it is encircled with a band of tiny red LEDs, softly glowing. John doesn’t touch it, but he can feel the way his entire future hinges on the thing.

And he has _no idea_ what it is.

“…Brains?”

Brains may as well be glowing, with how proud and excited he is, “It’s a second c-copy of your brain, an external interface. I-it’s not been t-tested yet, I wanted to wait until I’d dialed in some of the finer parameters. But in light of recent events…if you’re w-willing to try it, it’s at least usable. It should be able to filter all psychic input. I hoped it would help you be a b-bit less overwhelmed.”

“Codename: Halo.” He hears himself say it, but he’s gone numb all the way through. John extends a fingertip, touches the edge of the circlet, just lightly. “…can I…?”

“Oh, p-please do,” Brains urges, and he pushes his glasses up his nose, beaming. As John gently lifts the ring to his eyelevel, about to settle it in place above his temple, he adds, “I c-call it the Extracranial Orbital Screening System. E-EOS, for short.”

“EOS,” John echoes, and places the circlet over his head.


	9. Chapter 9

The world behind John’s eyes is rendered down into a white room with no door.

And he’s the only one inside it for the first time in years.

John can’t quite tell what this is, but it’s—-it’s almost like the device on the riverbank, below the dam. It’s silence, a pure white void, because the notion that there are walls around him is only a trick of his consciousness, caught in a moment out of time.

It’s nice in here. He finds himself wondering if everyone’s mind is like this—if a _normal_ mind is like this—but somehow he doubts that. He wants to know what’s going on.

The void that’s not a void becomes a room again, because suddenly there’s solidity beneath his feet, and everything darkens into blackness. But it’s a sort of quiet, peaceful darkness and he’s still fully awake and aware. John’s standing in the middle of his own mind and a ring of bright blue light coalesces into a halo over his head. This is bemusing for a moment and he squints and stares at it, realizes that it’s not a single beam of light, but rather a blur of motion as a single point of brightness orbits in front of his eyes.

He reaches up to touch it and it pulses, and a voice that’s not a voice fills his head, light and feminine and with a slight accent.

“You’ve never known what you are, have you?”

And somehow, though he’s never heard it before, this voice is familiar.

And _infinitely_ knowing.

So _that’s_ weird.

This is the second time John’s had someone else in his head, but this time is different. It’s weird, and yet—well, somehow it’s not threatening. Somehow this feels safe, feels simpler and purer than the raw, brutal violation of earlier in the day. This feels like something he can trust.

He’s not sure if he says it aloud or only thinks it when he asks, “Who are you?”

“I’m everything you don’t understand about the way your brain works.”

John can’t quite get a read on this idea, but it’s okay, because the voice goes on to explain. “You sometimes think you’re psychic, but know that isn’t quite right. Then you think you’re an empath, but you’re not exactly that either, and there’s no literature on this that isn’t comic books or Star trek. You think you’ve got some sort of precognition, but if that’s what it is, then as it stands it’s useless to you. So really it’s none of those things.”

This is worse than weird, this is _eerie_. These are things he knows himself, but hasn’t ever told anyone. He’s not sure he understands what Brains has done, but he nods. It’s all true. He doesn’t know if he can hold his breath in this strange not-place, but he catches himself at it and exhales slowly anyway.

The halo above his head pulses again, and John still can’t tell if he’s hearing the words or thinking them himself, in that small, lilting voice. “Except it’s all of those things, too. What stops you is the fact that they’re all twisted up together, and you don’t understand what’s actually happening when you try to let it all in. It’s too much, it overwhelms you. The closest you’ve ever been able to come to making it work is just opening yourself as wide and raw as possible, and letting everything that reaches you flow in. You’ve never had a filter to catch what matters, you just have the whole of reality washing in and out of you like the tide, rubbing grains of sharp sand against your mind. You’ve been worn thin in places before, and built yourself back up, but now you’re nearly worn away, aren’t you?” A beat. “You’re worn so thin that someone broke through and took you over. And they nearly killed your brother—they nearly made _you_ kill your brother.”

John doesn’t know if he actually _exists_ in this weird internal mindscape, but there are tears on his cheeks and he can feel them and he’s pressed a hand over his mouth to catch a sob before it can slip out. Not that anyone else would hear.

Or maybe they would, this feels like something that might’ve happened before. “Did you do that? Was that you?” he asks, whispers it into the silence of the room around him. “H-have I…? But I can’t, I couldn’t…I fought. I _tried_ to fight, but he…it…he? It was just _more_ than me, and I couldn’t beat him, and—and I…did I lose? Is this losing, have I lost? Did I lose my mind?”

There’s a laugh, sweet and kind and crystalline. “You’re not losing your mind. Quite the opposite. There’s two of us now, and that’s what it’s going to take to keep you sane. You were doing too much, John, and doing almost all of it almost entirely the _wrong way_. No one taught you. You’ve had to figure it out for yourself.”

“…I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do, actually. Because I’m your brain, digitally rendered. All your thoughts and the patterns of your mind, only they’ve been untangled and mapped out and made neat and orderly, made sense of. And hardwired into a device you can link with psychically. I’m everything you’ve ever thought, everything that’s gone through your poor tired head, only _I_ can make sense of it all.”

John wants to protest, and hesitates. “But I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

There’s something benevolent about that pale blue glow. Something kind and understanding and knowing and it’s never occurred to John not to wonder just what the hell is happening, because somehow it _does_ make sense. “No, you do. You’ve thought it all before, but you’ve thought it in a million tiny bits and pieces, impressions of ideas and bigger thoughts and concepts that just don’t stick to the surface of your brain any longer, the way it’s been worn so smooth by everyone else’s thoughts and feelings. I’m fresh. I don’t wear out. And I can think it all in a way that makes sense.”

“If I’m not psychic than how—how is this working? If—so, wait, if you’re a copy of my brain, then—I’ve never done this with anyone else before. How’re we communicating, what is this?”

“You’re not a _true_ psychic. If you’re psychic at all, it was an unintended side effect. But you’re a _little_ bit psychic, and with my mind closely mapping yours and with nothing thicker than your skull between your grey matter and my silicon, that’s all you’re going to need. I’ll be wide open, I’ll take everything in. I can process it. I’ll give it to you in a way you can handle.”

John nods, slowly, but with a growing certainty, because it _does_ make sense. “What good will that do, though? You say I’ve always done this wrong—and I don’t doubt that for a second. It’s _always_ felt wrong, it’s always been so goddamn hard, just to catch tiny little glimpses of the future. I never knew—never knew what to _do_ with them.”

John’s second-self interrupts. “You can’t see the future. You’re not precognitive. What you’re sensitive to, John, are the million little things that go wrong in a given day. Every tiny little clue that leads up into a disaster, every thing that might strike someone as off. A tremor that hits a glass of water, sitting just so on a counter top, makes someone stop and take notice, if only for a moment. Foreshocks. Three days later, there’s an earthquake. The thought that crossed an electrician’s mind, as he wired in the works of a laundry room, that he really isn’t using the right gauge of wire for the task, and that down the line that might cause a problem. The spark that starts the fire. You open your mind above a place and a time and you let it _all_ in—but those are the only details that matter, those are the diamonds in the rough.”

“I use too much bandwidth,” John concludes, and it’s all starting to make sense, more and more by the minute. Like he’s starting to sync up with all these tantalizing, sensible ideas, all these big grand thoughts that just seem to be _right_. “Because it all adds up, eventually, but—you’re saying I find _everything_ , instead of just finding the hundreds of little things that matter. But you—you can do that. You can find the little things?”

The lights dip and whirl in front of his eyes, leave the axis of their orbit in what’s almost a nod. “Yes. It’s simple, for me. It’s all I was built to do, and I won’t be dividing my resources, the way you do.”

“Dividing my—?”

“Serum Five wasn’t ready,” the voice echoes, what Brains had said. John had known that, but it’s weird to hear the small voice say it. “It wasn’t pure. It’s why you’ve been so mixed up, John, it’s why it draws on you so hard. It was never optimized, it was just a muddle of whatever Brains could produce that seemed like it might be useful. Other factors were missed. You can start to lean away from the psionic side of things. I’ll handle that. But—and I _know_ you’ve wondered—didn’t you ever want to find out why you can’t keep your feet on the ground? When you really throw yourself into the rush of other people’s thoughts, and you just lose hold of the Earth beneath you? Did it ever consciously occur to you that half your energy is devoted to controlling the urge to fight gravity?”

This strikes a deep, profound chord at the heart of John’s being, and the chamber around him almost seems to resonate with it. There’s only one way John’s ever been able to feel free, free of the burden that had been placed upon him, in the name of finding his father—and it’s when his limbs loosen, when his body starts to drift away from the relentless pull of the world around him, and he allows himself to drift. When John’s mind slips away, his body follows it, and for a moment he’s free of the weight of the world.

 _That’s_ always seemed like the side-effect, something he needs to control, to manage. He’s never just allowed it to happen.

Alan can fly. John’s always envied him. John’s always known who’s jealous of whom, always known that Virgil wishes he could do what Scott can do. That Scott wishes he could at least _understand_ what Gordon does. And that Gordon sometimes wishes he could be invisible, the way Kayo can be, though his personality never tells anything but the opposite. Alan’s never envied anybody. There are days John would’ve _killed_ for his little brother’s free, easy reality. If he understands what he’s being told—and truthfully he has no excuse not to, because it’s the property and provenance of his own mind—then maybe John can fly, too. All it’s going to take is letting go.

The voice speaks again, as though it’s been awaiting its cue. “You’re going to come out of this. It’s only been a few moments. Brains heard something upstairs and he turned to look. His elbow brushed his coffee mug, it was at the very edge of the desk. It’s just over half full, the weight of it is just enough to tip it over the edge of the desk. It will be falling when you see it next. Don’t move. But don’t let it hit the ground.”

John blinks, and he’s back in the world. At some point he’s risen to his feet, and there’s a cool, damp line, the path of a tear down one of his cheeks. Brains looks up at him. John doesn’t move.

And a coffee cup, half full, doesn’t shatter on the ground, but hangs in mid air, with coffee caught at an awkward angle, dripping drop by drop, onto the floor.


End file.
